Outsourcing Your Testing

A common practice in many corporations is to outsource or subcontract a portion of the test work to other companies that specialize in various aspects of software testing. Although this may sound more cumbersome and more expensive than having the work done by testers on the product team, it can be an effective way to share the testing if done properly.

Configuration and compatibility testing are typically good choices for outsourcing. They usually require a large test lab containing many different hardware and software combinations and a staff of several people to manage it. Most small software companies can't afford the overhead and expense for maintaining these test labs, so it makes more sense for them to outsource this testing to companies who make it their business to perform configuration and compatibility tests.

Localization testing is another example that often lends itself to outsourcing. Unless you have a very large test team, it would be impossible to staff testers that speak all the different languages that your product supports. It would be beneficial to have a couple of foreign language speaking testers on your team to look for fundamental localization problems, but it's probably more efficient to outsource the testing of the specific languages. A company that specializes in localization testing would have testers on staff that speak many different languages who are also experienced testers.

As a new software tester, you likely won't be asked to make decisions on what testing tasks will be outsourced, but you may need to work with an outsourcing company if it's testing areas of the software that you're responsible for. The success, or failure, of the outsourcing job may well depend on you. Here's a list of things to consider and to discuss with your test manager or project manager to help make the job run more smoothly:

• What exactly are the testing tasks that the testing company is to perform? Who will define them? Who will approve them?

• What schedule will they follow? Who will set the schedule? What happens if the deadline is missed?

• What deliverables are you to provide to the testing company? The software's specification, periodic software updates, and test cases are some examples.

• What deliverables are they to provide to you? A list of the bugs they find would be the minimum.

• How will you communicate with them? Phone, email, Internet, central database, daily visit? Who are the points of contact at both ends?

• How will you know if the testing company is meeting your expectations? How will they know if they're meeting your expectations?

These aren't rocket science issues, but they're unfortunately often overlooked in the rush to outsource a testing task. Throwing software over a wall and telling a company to "just test it" is ripe for disaster. But, spending some time up-front planning the testing can make outsourcing a very effective means to perform tests that you otherwise couldn't handle because of limited resources.